Cardinal’s bullpen crumbles in 6-2 loss

Joel Pineiro looked solid in his return to the mound for the Cardinals, but the Reds were able to avoid a sweep by beating St. Louis 6-2 last night. Pineiro’s five solid innings kept the ball game close until the seventh.

The Cardinals bats were silenced by Reds’ starter Bronson Arroyo who pitched well going six innings allowing just two hits and a walk while striking out four. Troy Glaus tied the game in the seventh when he hit his 8 th homer of the year off former Royal Jeremy Affeldt.

Pineiro tossed four innings of shutout ball, but ran into trouble in the fifth giving up two runs, including a solo shot to Arroyo, who is a pretty good hitting pitcher. Pineiro finished with just those two runs on three hits, one of which was the homer, another being a double. He only walked one and struck out six.

Then, the bullpen melted down in the bottom of that inning. Reliever Mark Worrell gave up a walk and double and Randy Flores was called upon. After getting Corey Patterson to hit into a force out, Flores walked Paul Janish to load the bases and then walked Ken Griffey Jr. for the winning run. Brandon Phillips then put the game out of reach with a bases clearing triple.